Penguin Launches The Big Break Competition
Released
on: September 03, 2009, 4:17 am
Author: Penguin
Industry: Entertainment
In
September 2009 Penguin Books and The National Theatre Discover
Programme launched The Big Break young scriptwriting competition.
Young
people nationwide aged 13 to 18 are invited to read award-winning
author Meg Rosoff's debut novel How
I Live Now and take the story, themes and characters as a
starting point to create a treatment and the first scene of a
script.
Five
winners will be invited to spend a day at the National Theatre
Studio working with professional writers, National Theatre directors
and actors to workshop and develop their scripts. They will also
see a performance of Nation, based on a novel by Terry Pratchett,
adapted by Mark Ravenhill, opening at the National Theatre in
November 2009.
The
judging panel consists of author Meg Rosoff, playwright Mark Ravenhill,
associate director (literary) of the National Theatre Sebastian
Born, associate director of the National Theatre Discover Programme
Anthony Banks and editor of Penguin’s teen online book community
spinebreakers.co.uk Danielle Innes.
The
competition will live on Penguin's
teen book website Spinebreakers and the National
Theatre’s Discover website. There will be multi-media
resources available to young people on both websites which give
tools and advice on how to adapt a book for the stage, alternative
ways for laying out a script and what the National Theatre and
Penguin are looking for in successful submissions.
On
Spinebreakers teens have the opportunity to discuss, debate and
interact with a rich source of publishing from contemporary titles
such as Nick Hornby’s Slam to classics such as J.D. Salinger’s
Catcher in the Rye and Kerouac’s On the Road.
Meg
Rosoff’s debut novel How I Live Now (published by Penguin,
2004) won the Guardian and Branford Boase Awards and was short-listed
for the Orange Prize for New Fiction as well as the Whitbread.
-ENDS-
Notes to editors
The Big Break competition launched on 1 September 2009 and closes
30 October 2009. The winners will be announced on 27 November
2009 and the winners’ day will take place at the National
Theatre on 12 December 2009.
About
Penguin
Penguin was established
in 1935, is one of the world's leading consumer publishing businesses
and is part of Pearson plc, the international media company with
market leading businesses in education, business information and
consumer publishing. Penguin publishing comprises the Allen Lane,
Fig Tree, Hamish Hamilton, Michael Joseph, Penguin, Penguin Classics,
Puffin and Viking imprints.
For
further information, please contact:
Adele Minchin
Penguin Group UK
80 Strand
London
WC2R 0RL
020 7010 3072
www.penguin.co.uk